


Fortunate Son

by Safiyabat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-16
Updated: 2014-10-16
Packaged: 2018-02-21 10:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2464883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Safiyabat/pseuds/Safiyabat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When they told Cole that the road to Dean Winchester led through Sam, he's pretty sure that this isn't what they meant.  Then again, maybe it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fortunate Son

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my beta, SweetSamOfMine!

Cole had seen a lot, done a lot in his day. To be honest he hadn’t expected much to come of this Sam Winchester guy. Intel hadn’t had much to say about him – he’d heard a little, mostly about him with his brother, but no one had a whole lot on the guy himself. Not much that made sense, anyway. Dean’s little brother, tall (because he needed someone else to tell him that, right?), quiet – almost silent really. Bookish. One or two people – a cop up in South Dakota, a vet down in Texas – had good things to say about him. Most thought he was pretty much a screw-up, a ne’er-do-well.

He didn’t look like much. Not with all that hair – something he clearly took care of, paid attention to, put a lot of time and effort into. Not with that body – skin and bone underneath all those layers or so it seemed anyway. Not with that sling, that immobilized arm. He’d never served, never seen half the things Cole had seen. He was an academic and not even a very good one – he’d had to drop out of Stanford, hadn’t he?

Sure he’d blustered on about his brother being a monster, like Cole hadn’t known that for eleven years now. Sure he’d been all bravado when telling Cole to crawl back into his military recruiting ad, like he was doing Cole some kind of favor. Lots of guys could sound brave before the interrogator started. Cole saw it all the time. A pretty boy like Sam Winchester wouldn’t last ten minutes. 

To be honest, he hoped he wouldn’t need to. He wasn’t a monster. He wasn’t Dean Winchester – it wasn’t like he got off on torture or anything. But when Winchester hung the kid out to dry, knowing that Cole was going to cut his throat, Cole wasn’t left with much choice. He needed Dean Winchester, and everyone agreed that the path to Dean was through Sam. Fortunately the kid was going to crack before things got too out of hand. 

Only that’s not what happened. Cole started out small. He got bigger. He punched. He kicked. He cut. He burned. He broke out the pliers, and the cigarettes. He figured the poor guy would last maybe ten minutes, maybe fifteen. An hour in, then two, and Cole started to think that maybe he had missed something.

It wasn’t that the kid wasn’t hurting. No, he didn’t even bother trying to hold back the occasional grunt or scream. Every time Cole pulled back to ask where the older Winchester was, though, every time he pushed Sam to save himself more pain, he was met with more defiance. 

“I don’t know. If I did know, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Look, you don’t want to know. Trust me, it’s better this way.”

“What exactly are you trying to accomplish here? You really think this is going to sell me on your cause here buddy?”

“You missed a spot.”

“Shove it up your ass.” 

And through it all the guy stayed calm, that was the thing. He yelled. He screamed. But he didn’t lose his temper. Even when Cole re-injured the shoulder the vaguely detached façade stayed in place. Later, when he had time to analyze what went wrong, he would realize that Sam’s eyes told the story the whole time. They stared back at him, never sure what color they really were, but sure that Cole had nothing to offer that could be worse than he’d already survived. Cole had lost before he’d even begun. 

He’d been about to take out the guy’s kneecap when his phone rang. He never missed a call from his son, no matter what mess embroiled him. He knew too well how quickly a father could be taken away. When he turned back Sam Winchester was gone. He’d only turned away for five minutes, if that and he’d left a battered, physically broken man firmly secured to the chair. How had he gotten away so easily? It was impossible, physically impossible. 

He couldn’t help but gape in amazement for a little while. This guy – this guy had just…taken off. He’d freed himself, rescued himself when better men than him would have been unconscious. He shook his head.

An older man had told him, while he was searching for Dean, that he’d best give the Winchesters a wide berth. “Other people, their problems are the same as yours and mine. They get involved, the worst that can happen is a gun goes off at the wrong time or something. Sam and Dean get involved with something, even if it’s just looking for your lost dog, all of Heaven and Hell are going to get into it eventually. And buddy, I don’t care what you think Dean did to your daddy. It ain’t worth that kind of company, you feel me?” The guy took a deep drink from a whiskey glass that shook so bad Cole thought it might spill. “And I’ll give you another piece of advice – for free, even. You steer doubly clear of Sam.”

Cole had kept his snicker to himself. “Why? Because his brother will kill me if I touch him?”

The codger had laughed. “No. Listen to me. There ain’t nothing Sammy won’t do if he thinks it needs to be done.” He met Cole’s eyes squarely. “And there ain’t nothing he can’t do if he puts his mind to it. He took out two archangels. He killed a dragon.”

Cole had treated the man kindly after that, because you had to take pity on people like that. Archangels? Seriously? Heaven and Hell? Dragons? Maybe he should stop buying the guy whiskey; he’d clearly had enough, had so much that his eyes had taken on the color. “Gonna tell me he’s buddies with Satan, old man?” he teased.

“Nah. Kicked his ass too.” 

Now, seeing how Sam had escaped so easily after what Cole put him through he wondered if the guy didn’t know more than Cole had given him credit for.

It didn’t matter, of course. He was going to get his revenge, and the path to revenge lay through Sam Winchester. He left the warehouse.


End file.
